Vivian Celeste Neal, Knight Communities Program Director to Akron and Northeast Ohio, was featured in the Akron Beacon Journal today. She will be retiring Feb. 26.

When Neal came to the foundation, ''she not only brought a lifetime of insight and experience, but a love for Akron, her community,'' said Alberto Ibarügen, president and chief executive of the Knight Foundation. ''She has been a player in Knight's involvement in Team NEO, the University Park Alliance, the Austen BioInnovation Institute, education projects with Akron's school board and superintendent and countless other small and big projects around town. She understands Akron, she loves Akron, she wants Akron to succeed. And her work always showed it.''

You can read the entire story at Ohio.com

 

As the popularity of social media and short-form messages grow, it's only appropriate that awards season includes what is being dubbed the 'Oscars of Twitter.' The second annual Shorty Awards will be held March 3 at TheTimesCenter in The New York Times Building. The awards are sponsored by the Knight Foundation.

The Shorty Awards honor the best producers of short real-time content on Twitter, who are nominated by users in 27 official categories and new crowd-sourced ones. The newly created Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences help select winners from groups of finalists. The academy is comprised of leaders in technology, journalism, business and culture and actress Alyssa Milano (@alyssa_milano), New York Times technology columnist David Pogue (@pogue), entertainer MC Hammer (@mchammer) and Knight Foundation President and CEO Alberto Ibarügen (@Ibarügen), among others.

Here's a peek at some of the front-runners in a finance, food and government categories:

Nominations began earlier this month and end Friday, January 29, 2010 at 11:59:59 pm Pacific time. If you're already on Twitter, you can nominate and vote for your favorite users by using the voting box at http://shortyawards.com/.

Knight Foundation CEO and Chairman of the Newseum Board of Trustees Alberto Ibarügen introduced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to an audience at the Newseum today in Washington, D.C.. Secretary Clinton stated that Internet freedom should be a right for everyone, and that the United States has a responsibility in helping protect the free exchange of ideas on the world's information infrastructure.

[caption id="attachment_2333" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibarügen introduces U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Newseum Thursday in Washington, D.C. (Image via CSpan.org)"]

Secretary Clinton mentioned the launch of a competition to improve information exchanges:

"... There are companies, individuals, and institutions working on ideas and applications that could already advance our diplomatic and development objectives. The State Department will be launching an innovation competition to give this work an immediate boost. We'll be asking Americans to send us their best ideas for applications and technologies that help break down language barriers, overcome illiteracy, connect people to the services and information they need. Microsoft, for example, has already developed a prototype for a digital doctor that could help provide medical care in isolated rural communities. We want to see more ideas like that. And we'll work with the winners of the competition and provide grants to help build their ideas to scale."

You can watch video of the speech at C-SPAN. A full transcript of the speech is available at the U.S. Department of State.